Jekyll Island, Day 1

Scenes from Jekyll Island -- the beach on a very windy, very chilly day with winds from the northeast. The swells and waves were huge, which is very unusual for this area. Normally, the Atlantic here is lake-smooth.

We arrived Wednesday around 12:30. Ate lunch in the cafeteria -- the food was pretty good and it was nice not to have to cook for the days we were there.

After lunch, Milton took us to the slough. We learned about dunes and swales and sloughs and dissolved oxygen. The first slough we visited was in a park, and Monster #2 saw deer tracks (hunting is outlawed on the island and there are tons of deer). We trekked through the woods to slough number two. Here, the chaperones' job was to watch the alligators, which wasn't reassuring since one alligator wasn't visible. Monster #2 proceeds to slip and almost fall face first into the slimy duckweed-covered part of the slough.

Later, the kids painted T-shirts with rubbery, scale fish models. We created canvases for each homeroom. I so want to do that, for the living room maybe?

As soon as we arrived at the 4-H center, my cell phone stopped working. Everybody but me had cell coverage. That meant no email, no texting, no calls. Talk about being forced not to worry, meddle, etc. On some levels, that was really nice because it forced me to focus solely on what was going on around me, not four hours away.

Coming up next -- day two, with the dock study, fish dissection, marsh trip, ocean study, and the night walk.